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Las Vegas Consumption Extravagance

My wife and I just got back from a weekend trip to Las Vegas for a family get-together. While I went to Vegas when I was 13, this was the first time I've been there since I've been allowed to gamble AND I've been interested in sustainability, energy and water consumption. Aside from the great food and shows, the most surprising thing to me was the lack of sustainable practices on The Strip.

I had forgotten how absolutely huge the hotels/casinos were out there. You get great exercise (which is good because you need it to walk of the buffets) just walking from your room to the pool. But all of that space is air-conditioned, which requires a ton of energy. I would love to see the energy/water consumption details for one of these behemoths.

O.K., I can't honestly say that I was surprised that Sin City wasn't the most sustainable city in the U.S., but for a city that is located in the desert, one would think that resource conservation would garner a little more attention.

Here are some of the thoughts from the weekend and some nice facts on Las Vegas energy and water details I found once I got back:

- The first thing you notice when you land at night is the colorful Las Vegas strip and the light sprouting from the top of the Luxor. According to this article, the light is composed of 39 Xenon bulbs that consume 7 kW each! According to my calculations, that is 273 kW of electricity consumption, which is about 100 times what my home consumes when the AC and a few lights are on (My TED says my home is consuming 2.395 kW this very instant).

- I didn't see one solar panel installed anywhere on the strip. As much energy as the Casinos consume and as much money as they make, you think they would at least put up a small solar array? Why is a light that is visible from space, dancing fountains, a mini Eiffel tower, a live ship battle, and countless other pointless (although the dancing fountains were pretty cool) features all seen as vital, yet not one Casino can figure out how to install solar panels? After all, one of the largest arrays in the US at Nellis AFB is 14 MW of solar PV installed and is just down the road. Why doesn't a Casino install some renewable energy and power some slot machines with it and market that as "Green Gambling"!

- We stayed at the MGM Grand and while they had a tiny pamphlet on their commitment to Sustainability tucked in the welcome packet, they could do a few more things to help guests save energy and water. For one, their thermostat controls looked like they were installed in the 70's. There wasn't even a digital temperature display, just a "Hotter/Colder" dial. They could also suggest guests close the drapes when they are gone for the day. With the hot desert sun pounding down on the floor-to-ceiling glass, closing the drapes would provide a great thermal barrier which would require the thermostat to work less. Aside from energy consumption, the MGM has a Lion exhibit that was extremely impressive and seemed very sustainable. They rotate a group of lions from a nearby ranch and a different pair of lions comes each day. I used to think that maybe there was a tiny chance that if I was in Africa and encountered a lion I could possibly fight it off, but after seeing how big the lions are in real life, I would be lion feed.

- Las Vegas is an oasis in the desert. It's great when you need AC to cool off from the heat, but all those annual visitors and the growing population take a huge toll on the water supply, which isn't exactly plentiful in the desert and considering Las Vegas is suffering from one of the worst droughts on record. I would have like to seen a bigger effort on water conservation ( I really didn't see any references to the drought while I was there). You would think that the Bellagio fountains would at least have a sign somewhere highlighting the water shortage and their efforts at conservation? However, it is nice to see the city of Las Vegas is paying residents $1.50 per sq. ft. of lawn removed and converted to desert landscaping (to conserve water that would be required for the grass). I don't think I saw one flush-less urinal that are getting popular in Atlanta due to our recent drought.

The city demands 5,600 megawatts on a summer day. By 2015 that's expected to hit 8,000. "We could build everything that has been proposed and still have the same deficit then that we do now," says Higgins.

The Forbes article does go on to say that the Casinos represent 20% of Nevada's electricity demand! 5.6 Giga-Watts is a huge chunk of power and is equal to about 5 large coal power plants. Some of this power comes from Hoover dam, but Hoover dam has a nameplate capacity of 2.08 GW and Nevada only consumes 23 % of the dam's electricity output (I didn't realize that Los Angeles consumes 15% of Hoover Dam's power). If these facts are accurate, Las Vegas only gets about 1/10th of its power from Hoover Dam (actually less because Nevada does have more than Las Vegas going for it). I'd like to see where the rest of the power fueling the gambling machine comes from (unfortunately the answer is probably coal).

- Speaking of Hoover Dam...When we flew out on Sunday morning it was a crystal clear day (thanks Drought!) and we flew right over Hoover Dam. You could even tell from 10,000 feet in the air that the water level in Lake Mead was low. It wasn't until I got back to my computer that I realized just how low the water level actually was. According to this chart that graphs Lake Mead's water level the lake hasn't been this low since 1965!

If the drought persists and more water is diverted from the Colorado, the lake could drop to 1,050 feet. That would prevent water from flowing into the intake pipe and cut 40 percent of Las Vegas’s supply -- the disaster Mulroy is trying to head off.Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 to regulate the river and form Lake Mead, wouldn’t be able to produce electricity for the 750,000 people it supplies in Los Angeles.

Currently the lake is at about 1,100 feet. Only 50 more feet to go before disaster. Seems like this would be enough inspiration for a city to really get serious on sustainable initiatives.

- I saw many trash cans, but not too many recycling bins. With all the bottles of water that you need to consume to stay hydrated, you would think there would be a bigger push to recycle them. And I'm guessing a small forest could be saved if the handout advertisements for naked women were recycled instead of thrown on the ground. Does there really need to be someone every 50 yards passing these things out? I'm sure if a guy wants to find a stripper to come to his hotel room he does not need some sleazy guy/girl standing on the corner to hand him a prostitute playing card to do so.

- One of the highlights was a dinner my family and I had at Enoteca San Marco, Mario Batali's restaurant in the Venitian. It wasn't until we asked for some olive oil for our bread that the waiter informed us they were a Certified Green Restaurant (CGR) and he'd be happy to bring us some oil since we asked for it (they don't put out things like oil or water until they are asked for, to prevent waste). After doing some research on the Green Restaurant Associations site and doing a search for CGR in Vegas I discovered that Batali and team are involved in all 3 (yes, there are only 3) of the CGR on the strip. Which leaves the burning question: Why is Mario Batali and team the only restaurant group running Green Restaurants in Las Vegas?

Las Vegas was built on extravagance and consumption. The city wouldn't be complete without all of its lights and fountains. But just because the city doesn't want to ruin the image of sin, doesn't mean that it can't start making some steps in the right direction. If it doesn't start now, it will be forced to do so in the future when the water runs dry and the lights start flickering.

***Update - 9/23/09 - I was glad to see this article on Time this morning covering CityCenter. It looks like the project is moving ahead quicker than I thought. It forgot to mention anything about LEED status though!

Comments

I'm born and raised in Southern Nevada, and a pipefitter, we build power plants.
1) Why would a casino waste it's money on a solar array on it's roof, which isn't designed for any weight much beyond what's already up there, when they could, if they so desired, push for a solar plant to be built anywhere else in the Southern Nevada desert, where no one can see it. And really why would they? They're in the business of hospitality, not energy. All they care about and should care about is the cost of their power and how it relates to what they're trying to do to promote themselves through bright lights and other power intensive displays. One of the things I'd like to see is the rest of Las Vegas outside the casinos, downtown and the Strip, reduce the amount of wasted light with putting in reflectors to direct excess street lighting downwards so that the Strip and Downtown are more highlighted, then they wouldn't have to work so hard to stand out. Flying into Vegas in the 70s and 80s at night, the Strip/downtown looked way cooler when it was a sea of dark desert around it, than now when it's a sea of yellow high pressure sodium lights.
2) When the Bellagio was built, they dozed over a golf course that owned water rights. That's what they're using for that lake in addition to grey water from the hotel that's treated. It's greener than you think. And I imagine it's losing to evaporation less water than a golf course would, and it's also returning a greater return on investment in dollars on water used. It's a Wynn win.
3) The buildings themselves are pretty well insulated. I know, I've seen it done, it's about 4 inches of rock wool just inside the entire exterior, plus a couple inches of foam on the roofs and exterior walls sometimes are 2-4" of foam. They're sealed up tight, and how hot did the glass get? It's not cheap either, in addition to the reflective coatings on them. Ever drive by the Luxor at noon; the reflection is a driving hazard sometimes. And they use a 4 pipe system for HVAC that is more efficient than a standard home HVAC system.
4) Green's not a big enough demographic to matter to us here as far as attracting tourism. It's laughable. This is Sin City; we're not here fuel guilt about the environment; we're in stress alleviation business, come here to party and have a good time and leave your worries behind. This town is the anti-thesis of sustainability; always has been, always will be.
5) The Vegas area's not so much in a drought, as the Colorado River basin is in a drought. But it's really a matter of economics; a large portion of the water that leaves the Colo. River goes to agriculture in So. Cal. When the water is market priced and not given to Imperial Valley farmers at a near giveaway price so that they can grow high demand water crops in middle of the desert, we'll buy a greater share. The water will go where the money is; and if the IV farmers won't give up what they use, they'll probably be bought out, just like much of Northern Nevada's population doesn't want to supply water to LV, but most of the water rights holders sold it to the So Nev. Water System anyway.
6) Flushless urinals are against plumbing code here; for good reason, they're not as clean. And they stink, I saw them in SF at some museum and the whole bathroom smelled way worse than it should have, and that was maybe 4 urinals, I can't imagine how bad a whole LV casino sized bathroom with 20 flushless urinals would smell. Never mind the increased maintenance involved with having to change out all those cartridges. Never put a urinal in your house, they stink because they don't completely change the water out of the trap when flushed. Going flushless compounds that. When a urinal is plumbed in it get's 2" pipe, come back in 10 years, demolish that bathroom and that 2" urinal drain will be down to diameter of a pencil with deposits and smell to high hell. That's what'll be deposited onto the back splash of every flushless urinal. Stale pee.
7) Our power is generated by coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, and solar and since you can buy electricity on the open market, probably from everything else on some level. There's a new coal plant going in at Apex (US93 and I15). The one outside Mesquite NV just switched from coal to NG after community uproar, and a solar plant is planned down by Primm at state line, that's just been moved ahead and looks like it will actually go, probably sometime late this year, early 2011.

well Chris i was wondering if u had any info about exactly how much energy the air cons use in a day or a year. It would be great help if u could reply!
Thanks
P.s
It's amazing how much of that energy is wasted.

.I think you make a very good point about Vegas being behind the curve with sustainability. The city would be a behemoth to tackle, but there are so many opportunities for chance and so many possible payoffs! With the amount of money-hunger behind Vegas' bigwigs, I'm surprised that they haven't caught on to the profit that could be found in some sort of a "Green gambling" campaign. I'm sure that there is always some level of guilt that some people face when gambling, and not only would green gambling ease that, it would even give them an excuse to gamble! There is a huge hole waiting to be filled in Vegas' green future and I predict that the person who steps in is going to be very lucky (and rich!) one day.

I also recently returned from Vegas. My room's window overlooked the casino roof which was easily the size of five football fields and would have been a perfect spot for a solar array. I also did not see any solar panels anywhere. Concerning thermostats, most newer hotels have a slot by the door for the room key/card. None of the lights, TV, or AC will work unless the card is in the slot. Saves a ton of energy. While it would probably be difficult to get hotels to retrofit in this economic environment, legislation could probably be passed to mandate this system in new construction. Recycling bins were virtually nonexistent.

Thank you for posting this. I went to Vegas for the first time last November (2009) to visit a family friend and to explore the city. I wasn't sure what to expect but felt certain I was not going to enjoy the strip and the casinos. But I too found Vegas to be intriguing. It's like a bubble in the desert, totally removed from reality.
I am currently developing a self-funded independent documentary looking at the sustainable efforts the city is making (with the help of the family friend who works in this area). I too would like to know about the strips true consumption and why the hotels and casinos have not, as far as I am aware of, done more.
I understand Vegas needs the neon lights, the fountains and opulent hotels but with just under a massive 40 million visitors each year that is a huge drain on resources and energy in an area that does not have many natural resources.
How ever, I am in the process of reading about all the green efforts being made by the mayors office, the city and the local community and I'm interested to learn more.
Thank you every one for giving me more to think about.